December 14, 2014

“When you hear music,” jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy once remarked, “After it’s over, it’s gone, in the air, you can never capture it again.”

In varying degrees that is true of all live performances. They have their moment, their season and then are gone. Sometimes they remain vivid, but eventually, even excellent productions and outstanding performances drift into imperfect recollection and generalised hearsay.

I hope this website, for all its sometimes unwelcome opinions, is a useful record of some of the notable activity in Adelaide this year.

I want to thank all the companies and creatives who have generously invited me to performances in 2014 and to acknowledge your continuing commitment and achievement.

Looking back on my comments in the lists for previous years I find they are still fitting, if not more so, at the present time, and so perhaps can be usefully repeated again here :

“It is always hard to create good work and these are especially difficult times in which to operate.
So much entertainment is now corporatized, global, commodified and noisily dominant in its marketing.

This can overwhelm audiences and drown out smaller scale and more reflective creative work. It can also diminish the capacity and inclination of audiences to engage with art works which are original, challenging, independent and local.

It seems unfathomable that companies and governments can allocate (and write down) budgets in the billions and yet no-one can find funds or priority for this country’s cultural activity. Less and less is being done to support new works by Australian artists, performers, and makers of all kinds – many in mid-career and with proven reputations. That so many continue in their vocations – in uncertain circumstances and for often modest rewards – is not just admirable, it is inspirational. “

Here is a selection of my highlights for the past year – not in any rank order, and by no means all that deserve mention.

Hi Murray
Don’t regret not seeing Quiet Faith – it is an 70 minutes of your life that you would never get back. You’d be better off cleaning the bathroom. The experience was like water boarding. Incredibly boring, conservative and torturous. The set was lovely – but that pleasure only lasted 5 minutes.